Aoslare

Well, it makes sense that they can't wait around forever, though it does sound unplanned.

The other one though, there are warnings about exitzone all over the place.

The experience reward is exactly the same, which is why it is in italics.

I don't think rotghroths were ever "banned," though there were probably comments in G2 that all the new Barzite creations were illegal. Certainly Drakons and Gazers are banned.

http://minmax.ermarian.net/g4/

It's bare bones at the moment. But for those of you wondering about the picayune deatils of reputation -- or about how you can get both the Ring of Eye's Purity and the Stasis Shield without giving up disgusting munchkin min-maxing -- you might be interested in my Task & Reputation Guide. It's not quite polished yet, but all the data is there.

(...yes, for the three weeks that I am in the middle of the woods with no car, I have too much time on my hands, it's true.)

I'm a little surprised that you would even consider rating A4 over G4. I don't hate A4, but really -- what's the comparison?

Unfortunately, Shock Troopers and Warriors are just worse, albeit minutely. Given that a shaping style character shouldn't be meleeing, the Shock Trooper is basically a Lifecrafter with worse magic, but slightly better HP and Parry. However, unless you regularly pump shaper Endurance much above 8, the HP difference is worth about 1 point of Endurance, whereas the magic difference is worth about 4 points (taking Spellcraft into account). Lifecrafter wins.

If we use the paradigm that pumping shaping skills is not worthwhile, the Warrior has no advantages whatsoever over the Servile, but he gets the same -4 in magic and loses 1/3 of his spell energy. Bzzt! Servile wins.

It's a very good game, and a lot of thought and energy went into its design and execution. That's also true of a number of other Spidweb games, though, certainly including at least Exile 2, Nethergate, and Geneforge 1.

Something I often reflect on, in the midst of my inane analyses, is how incredibly similar the classes are. Really, the differences between the classes, even Servile vs Lifecrafter, are extremely minute as classes go in most games. They can all do everything, and the difference in effectiveness at any given task isn't even that big. They can all do everything well, some can just do some things a little better.

This is of course the result of Jeff's preference for freeform, unrestricted character skill systems. I happen to prefer a few sharply distinct options, which is probably why I go to such lengths to analyze the nearly identical classes we do have.

1) There are some gross exaggerations and misstatements floating around here.

The Servile does not have "absurdly" more health than the Lifecrafter. It has about 1/2 more health. They even start with the same Endurance. It has a much easier time getting a high Parry, but Parry doesn't reduce damage as much as it did in A4 even. So it's ridiculous to say the Servile is really that much more survivable. You might not pay as much attention to a Lifecrafter's health, but if so, that's because you don't need to, not because you can't.

2) Jeff, pumping the shaping skills does make for considerably more powerful 1st- and 2nd-tier creations. Artila and Cryoa get a lot out of them. However, because the 4th- and 5th-tier creations (plus Drayks) start at such high levels and have such high HP and Energy bonuses and attack skills, the effects on those creations are greatly mitigated. Across the board, HP is only fractionally better, Energy is meaningless for many of those creations anyway, and attack strength goes up by a tiny percentage even when you pump skills to 10.

Ramping up damage multipliers for their attack types in G4 helped them A LOT -- it made them useful, rather than worse than Vlish. But when they have a base level around 30, a high base attack skill and sometimes even a Strength bonus, they are going to start out with 30 or 40 levels of attack strength. That only goes up by 1 level per 2 experience levels of the creation... not a very large increase.

3) DV, you keep repeating the benefits of using a Servile but you have not done anything to discredit the benefits of using a Lifecrafter that SoT, Khoth, and others have mentioned.

The Servile and Lifecrafter are similar in power, each with different sorts of flexibility that allow an answer to most any situation. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that. They are balanced, much more balanced than Agents and Shapers ever were!

I don't entirely agree. Compared to Serviles, Lifecrafters get:

1/3 less Health

Hugely lower melee ability

Worse Quick Action

Worse Parry

and

1/3 more Essence

+2 Intelligence

Mildly better creations

I think the melee ability is balanced out by being able to have more creations at any point in the game -- though the Servile is certainly more versatile. So it's really a question of whether that also balances out the lower Parry and HP.

Let's take a look at how much Essence a Servile and a Lifecrafter, with the same investment in Intelligence and the same equipment, will have at several fabricated points. (You can get a lot of bonuses to Int from items so these are fairly reasonable numbers):

LV   Int +   Servile  Lifecrafter---  -----   -------  -----------  5    +2        28    46 10    +5        69   109 15    +8       130   192 20    +12      233   346 30    +16      428   630 40    +16      562   830

Essentially, a lifecrafter potentially has more offensive firepower at any point. And a servile has better defense and, therefore, more options in terms of how to do things at any point.

In the end I think they are both good options. (The other three classes are worse, of course.)

*queues up Beethoven's Fifth*

<g>

The more I look at it, the more I am concluding that it's not worthwhile to pump a shaping skill early -- or at all.

First of all, Cryoa don't really end up any better than Roamers, except for having slightly more ammo.

Second of all, once you hit Drayks, the benefits from having high shaping skill are pretty low, as far as individual creations go. Levelled Roamers and Cryoa are cheaper than Drayks but otherwise not any better, and you can more than make up the essence cost by putting some of those 36 skill points into Intelligence.

Third of all, mixing shaping types is at least mildly useful, as there are good reasons to make one Vlish over a Roamer and a Wingbolt over a Kyshakk. Plus you can just make an army of cheap Artila in chapter 1 and steamroll the chapter.

Fourth of all -- and this is the kicker -- because of the 10-cap on shaping skill benefits and the fact that you eventually have +6 to shaping available from items, if you charge to 10 shaping skill right away, you will effectively be paying double for bonus levels -- up to 12 skill points for a single level. That's not so hot.

So, my new theory is: don't neglect Leadership and Mechanics. Don't pump shaping skills. Make some Artila and kill things. Pump Int. Pump spell skills. Make a Vlish or two. Pump Int more, make Drayks and Kyshakks or Wingbolts, and live happily ever after.

Well, we know Athron didn't self-fertilize because she talks about having a mate who is also responsible for the brood. Also, it's worth pointing out that, while Athron is female in parts of Exile 2 and all of Exile 3 and Avernum 1-3, in the Exile conversations that talk about the brood -- i.e., Athron's own words -- Athron refers to himself exclusively as male. Athron's gender wasn't changed until after he began brooding...

Also, there are what, 2 or 3 serviles that changed genders, out of numerous repeat appearances. 80% of the dragons changed genders. (Unless you count Pythras, or argue that Pyrog's being neutered doesn't count as a gender change, but you're still at at least 50%)

You can buy more living tools, though. Lots of merchants sell one or a few, and most players don't buy them because they're moderately expensive.

Agreed, the AI isn't all bad. When I broke G3 using Vlish (see this topic ), I initially made them with no extra Int to make seven as soon as I could. I actually held off putting Int in for a long time because it was easier to not control them, anyway. I think I finally had to give them Int when I started running into Submission Turrets, which they had to use melee attacks against to do well.

Late in the game Int is probably always necessary, but early on when essence is scarce, it can be a waste.

I think that last bit occured in G2 and G3 as well.

So the implication is that Solberg killed himself to get rid of Cheeseball, then came back to life?

?_?

You got it right -- it's based on the highest level character.

How did you accrue such a gap? Do the other 3 have lots of advantages and he has disadvantages?

This time, I needed real tables:

http://minmax.ermarian.net/g4/g4cre.html

I've been doing some testing with experience, and -- surprise, surprise -- things have changed since G3.

It's easy to notice that the penalty for being high level is not ramped up so high so fast. The real change is in how creation levels are handled.

Your own XP is still reduced by the number of creations (or other party members) you have, and so are your creations' XP. The reduction is definitely the same for the PC, and it seems to be the same for creations:

--- XP Earned ---
Creations  PC     Creations
       0  16/16
       1  15/16  15/20
       2  14/16  14/20
       3  13/16  13/20
       4  12/16  12/20
       5  11/16  11/20
       6  10/16  10/20
       7   9/16   9/20

HOWEVER, creation XP is now adjusted on an individual basis. It isn't based on the creation's level, however. It is based on the difference between your level and the creation's level.

There is a certain range of level variance where there is no adjustment made. If it goes above or below that, creations can earn less or more experience. This effect is not huge -- but when you make level 20 creations at level 6, it is definitely noticeable. If you make a high level creation and keep it with you the whole game, it will no longer lose its level advantage at a constant rate, it will lose it more quickly at first, and eventually slow to the old constant rate if given long enough.

All in all, I guess this doesn't change things that much, but it does steal a number of levels of creations you keep through the whole game, which is yet another roadblock in the Cryoa or Artila strategy.